New MD for BASF in the UK & Ireland

BASF has appointed Richard John Carter to head its operations in the UK and Ireland. Richard is VP, now in charge of BASF’s UK/Ireland Unit and MD of BASF companies in the UK and Ireland.

He was born in Yorkshire but until now has spent all of his 31-year career in the chemical industry outside the UK. He studied Economics and Business Administration at Middlesex University, Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden, Fachhochschule Reutlingen in Germany and the Manchester Business School. After three years with Bayer in Germany and Taiwan, he joined BASF in 1988 as a Product Manager for Fine Chemicals in Germany. He subsequently worked as a Project Manager in Malaysia, a Marketing/Sales Manager for Chemical Intermediates in Germany and Managing Director of BASF in Portugal, followed by procurement posts in Germany and North America.

Since 2008, he has been based in Germany as VP, Global Key Account Management for BASF’s Home & Personal Care Business in Europe & Asia Pacific.

Meanwhile, Dr Darren Budd has been appointed Commercial Director of the new UK & Ireland Country Cluster. Darren, who was born in Taplow in 1967, studied Chemistry at Kingston University, and did his doctorate on Transition Metal Complexation of Heterocyclic Conducting Polymers.He was Head of Chemistry at Continu-Fix, before joining BASF in 1996. After working as a Technical Sales Representative and later an Account Manager for Speciality Chemicals in the UK, he moved to BASF Venture Capital GmbH in Germany as an Investment Manager. He returned to the UK in 2007 as a Business Manager for Care Chemicals and from 2009 to 2015 he headed BTC, BASF’s distribution company, in the UK.

Mark Meier, his predecessor as Commercial Director, has moved to Copenhagen as a Vice President and Head of the Country Cluster Nordic Baltic.